Today's Features

Manatee Springs State Park in Chiefland will host a variety of featured guests throughout the month of January to celebrate Manatee Awareness Month. With the cooler weather, the featured guest will be the manatee, along with partners in manatee protection, awareness, education and enforcement.

The Department of Environmental Protection’s Manatee Springs State Park will host a moonlight paddle event on Saturday, Feb. 27.

The moonlight paddle will be a guided canoe/kayak tour on the Suwannee River. Participants will learn about the history of the river while enjoying the beautiful scenery by moonlight. The park’s Citizen Support Organization will provide a short program following the moonlight paddle. Light refreshments will be served.

The American Legion Auxiliary Unit 236 of Levy County will be holding its monthly meeting at 7 p.m. The post is located at 9550 NE Hwy 27 Alt, just southeast of Bronson. Phone number is 352-486-5003. All ladies married to veterans (living or deceased) and daughters or granddaughters of veterans are welcome.

It was a cold, snowy day in November, and Myrtle had to walk to a bus station to get to work. The time was 7:20 a.m., and she arrived at the station at 7:50 a.m. Myrtle boarded the bus and sat behind the friendly driver.

She was hired at the age of 16 for an electric company and had been there for two years. While at work, she received a phone call and was offered a position for bookkeeper and accountant and accepted it.

In the old days it seemed to take forever to get something done, but today things are done in the blink of an eye. We all know that Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner during the assault on Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor back in 1812, but it wasn't until 1814 that words were put to music and it was being published all over the country. It was over a hundred years later, in fact in 1931, when President Herbert Hoover made it our National Anthem.

It’s been almost 30 years since Pat Wilson graduated from Williston High School, but the boy who became the man Jim Pitt has never forgotten the town, community, school and friends who helped shape his character.

Pitt, an actor who plays a space shuttle captain in James Cameron’s Avatar that opened Friday, dropped in last week to catch up with old friends and remind people he is still the person they knew.

This year's Christmas and Winter Festival Parade, which took place on Dec. 5, was bigger, brighter, and better than ever. The enthusiastic entries and over 25 floats made the judges' job tough, and resulted in some tied scores.

The Greater Chiefland Area Chamber of Commerce congratulates the following as standing out above the rest of the best. Parade award winners are:

Actors singing traditional songs of the season, admission to the “Art of the Chopper” and “Red” exhibitions, and tasty holiday treats are all included in the Holiday Duet program offered by the Ocala Civic Theatre and Appleton Museum of Art of Central Florida Community College.